"Upon ye Whole, Sr, if any Who think this mater not carryd far enough or fast enough, can propose to yr M. what steps I ought to take any further than I have done, I beg to be heard to such proposal, and will in ye end submit intirely to yr Ms Judgmt. 66 Assuring you no one in ye kingdom hath a stronger biass than myself to do any thing of this nature, wch may tend to weaken a set a men who will never be cordial friends to your Government: But wher my judgt convinces me yt any thing I have ye greatest inclination to do (if I was to consult that only) would yet be injurious to or discredit yr M3 administration: I make my own passions or pjudices submit to that great end, yr Majesty's safety and ye public good; as I do so myself, so I heartily hope and pray yt every one in any degree of power may constantly follow the same rule. "Since my writing ye account above mentioned, the motion made by ye Torys, and rejected in ye H. of Cōmons, 'That a list might be layd before the House of yo names of all such as had been put out of the Comiss" of ye Peace since yr Ms accession to the Crown,' shows, that at ye same time ye Whigs complain ye alterations have been too few, ye Torys are of opinion that so many have been removd as could well be justifyd, if they might appear before the House at one View. "My Dear, "Above is ye postscript, wch I hope may be quickly turned into Fr. and added; I am glad to hear you are pretty well, and upon tryal I thank God I find myself so too. "6 Cl. afternoon, going to Cockpit."* "Dr Rogue 16 Yrs C. C. The King was satisfied by this explanation, and the threatened proceedings in parliament against the Lord Chancellor were dropped. The only other debate in which we have any account of Lord Cow [A. D. 1718.] per taking a part while he held the Great Seal was that in February, 1718, on the Mutiny Bill; and here he appears, I think, to very great advantage. It was proposed to keep up a force of 16,000 men for the whole kingdom, and that for any military offences which they might commit they should be tried by a courtmartial. With a view of embarrassing the Government, there was a most heterogeneous opposition to the bill, led by an ex-premier, the Earl of Oxford, who now spoke for the first time since his release from the Tower, and declared "that as long as he had breath in his body he would speak for the liberties of the country; that such a force was wholly useless in the time of profound peace; that the proposal could not but raise apprehensions that something was intended against our happy constitution; and that trial by a court-martial was inconsistent with the rights and privileges of Englishmen." The Duke of Argyle, * This note is addressed "To my Dear Palatine." an ex-Commander-in-chief, contended, and tried to prove, by various instances drawn from the history of Great Britain, that a standing army in time of peace was ever fatal, either to the Prince or to the nation. And Lord Harcourt, an ex-Chancellor, insisted that this bill, constituting military tribunals without appeal, was an invasion of the rights of the peerage, it being a branch of their Lordships' prerogative to be the supreme court of judicature in all cases, civil and criminal, and that the enactment enabling the King to establish courts-martial, with power to try and determine any offences specified in the articles of war, unconstitutionally vested a sole legislative power in the Crown, which was communicated and delegated to a council of war. Lord Cowper, leaving the woolsack, made a speech, which from the slight sketch we have of it, appears to have been comprehensive and masterly. He said that "he had maturely considered the affair now in agitation, not as a person in a public station, but as a private unprejudiced man, and that he was convinced in judgment and conscience that it was necessary, both for the support of the present happy establishment and the security of the nation, to keep up the force now on foot; he was confirmed in his opinion by considering what thoughts the Pretender and his friends [we may suppose that he here fixed his eyes on Lord Harcourt] had of this matter, and by reflecting that they had nothing more at heart than to procure the disbanding of those forces that had suppressed the late unnatural* Rebellion: he doubted not but the whole nobility that made up that august assembly [here there must have been a little ironical curl of his lip] was inviolably attached to his Majesty King George; his Majesty certainly had the best part of the landed, and all the trading, interest; as to the clergy, he would say nothing-but it was notorious that the majority of the populace had been poisoned, and that the poison was not yet quite expelled; the dangers which seemed to proceed from the army were chimerical, whereas the dangers with which the nation was threatened from the Pretender and his friends, in case there were no army to oppose them, were real, and the mischief that might ensue upon the success of their designs irreparable; if there had been such a small standing force as it was now wished to maintain, timely to suppress the tumult and riots which were raised on his Majesty's accession to the throne, in all probability there had been no open rebellion, and the salutary restraint was really for the safety and advantage of those who exclaimed against it: in his opinion, MAGNA CHARTA was entirely foreign to the present debate; they were now to consider how the Protestant succession was to be supported against vigilant, bold, and restless enemies, and they had the more reason to be on their guard as the advices from Scotland told that sedition and rebellion were again trumpeted forth from the pulpits in that country as to the courts-martial, they were only to be for the I never could understand how this epithet came to be constantly applied to the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. They might be, and I think they were, wicked and foolish, but there seems nothing unnatural in an attempt to drive away foreign rulers, and to recall our native princes. trial of offences of which common law judges and juries were wholly incompetent to determine upon; objecting to them was objecting to a military force, which, without them, could not be kept in a state of discipline; and the argument, that they invaded the rights of the peerage, was not less ridiculous than it would be to contend that shooting a mutineer or a coward in the face of an enemy would be a breach of the privileges of their Lordships' house." I hope that "he resumed the woolsack amidst loud and long-continued cheers." The bill passed, but only by a majority of 91 to 77; and a furious protest against it was signed by many Lords, both spiritual and temporal.* CHAPTER CXVII. CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD COWPER. WITHIN two months after delivering this great speech, which must have been so satisfactory to the King and his ministers, [A. D. 1718.] Lord Cowper ceased to be Chancellor. The cause of his resignation has been considered a mystery. Addison gave up at the same time the post of Secretary of State, but this was from real ill health, and a consciousness of official incapacity. There were other partial changes in the Cabinet,-none of them indicating any change in the policy of the Government. We do not know of any personal difference which Lord Cowper had with Sunderland, Stanhope, or any of his colleagues. Growing infirmity," as usual on such occasions, was talked of, but he had been hitherto able satisfactorily to perform all the duties of his office, and he continued after his retirement to show unabated vigour of body and elasticity of mind. Tindal says, "though it had been reported some months that he desired to retire, yet his resigning his employment at that juncture was a great surprise to the public, and no small grief to all unprejudiced persons." In a lively little sketch of his career, published in the "Historical Register," immediately after his death, it is said:"The great fatigues he had undergone having very much impaired his health, he had some time before entertained thoughts of a retreat. This voluntary resignation was a great grief to the well-affected, and to all dispassionate men of both parties, who knew that, by his wisdom and moderation, he had gained abundance of friends to the King,-kept steady many wavering minds,-brought the clergy into a better temper, and hindered some hot over-zealous spirits from running things to dangerous extremes." The public were called upon to infer that he parted from the Government on friendly terms, by his submitting to an elevation in the peerage. From original papers still preserved in MS., I think it is clear that his resignation or dismissal arose from the feud in the royal family, and * 7 Parl. Hist. 538-548. † Tind. Cont. Rap. Historical Register, 1723. the belief that he took part with the Prince against the King. Lady Cowper's position in the household was at first favourable to her husband's influence. Having been the correspondent, she had become the chief confidante, of the Princess of Wales,* who (the wife of George 1. being shut up in prison at Zel) already played the part of Queen in England. On the arrival of the Hanoverian mistresses, the most prudish ladies of the Court do not seem to have scrupled to visit them; and Lady Cowper, meeting the King at Madame Keilmansegge's petits soupers, attracted his notice by her sprightliness, without any detriment to her character, for, indeed, his Majesty never showed any taste for English beauty.† Inveighing in her DIARY against the Tory Duchess of Shrewsbury, and telling scandalous stories of her, she proceeds:— "Our acquaintance was renewed by supping together at Madame Keilmansegge's about a month ago, where, speaking of the King of France's eating, she was counting twenty things at least upon her fingers that he had eat at a time, she was saying, Sire, il manage ceci et cela, and counting over a number of things. Upon which I said to the King, Sire, Madame la Duchesse oublie qu'il a bien plus mangé que cela.' 'Qu'est-ce qu'il a mangé done?' said the King. 'Sire,' répondis-je, il a mangé son peuple, et si le bon Dieu n'avoit pas conduit votre Majesté au trône dans le moment qu'il a fait, il nous auroit mangé aussi. Upon which the King turned towards the Duchess and said, Entendez-vous, Madame, ce qu'elle dit?' and he did me the honour to repeat this to several people, which did not at all strengthen my interest with her Grace."-But from the time when the enmity of the father against the son began, the connexion between Lady Cowper and the Princess threw a suspicion on the Chancellor, and the Hanoverian party were desirous of turning him out to make room for Lord Chief Justice Parker, who had been getting possession of the royal ear, and who, it was expected, would be more accommodating in passing grants under the Great Seal. * "I am come into the Court with a resolution never to tell a lie, and I hope I find the good effects of it, for she reposes more confidence in what I say than on any others upon that very account."-Lady C.'s Diary. † When Lady Cowper was presented to him on her appointment to the bedchamber, he ought, according to court etiquette, to have kissed her, although she had before received this honour on her first presentation; but "he said five or six times, 'Oh, je l'ay vue; elles est de ma connoissance.' At last the Duke of Grafton told him it was upon my being made a lady of the bed-chamber; so then he said, 'Ouy, je le feray avec plaisir,' and I was saluted.” Although his Majesty, I presume, at once submitted to kiss the Lady Mayoress, there was a tremendous controversy whether she was to be kissed by the Princess at the banquet given at Guildhall on Lord Mayor's day: "but Queen Anne not having kissed her when she dined in the City, my Mistress did not do it either. My poor Lady Humphreys made a sad figure in her black velvet, and did make a most violent bawling for her page to hold up her train before the Princess,' being loth to lose that privilege of her mayoralty. But the greater jest was, that the King and the Princess both had been told that my Lord Mayor had borrowed her for that day only, and I had much ado to convince them of the contrary; but at last they did agree, that if he had borrowed a wife it would have been another sort of one than she was."—Lady C.'s Diary. The Lady Mayoress is said, when dinner was announced, to have roared out to another page, "Boy, carry my bucket,”—perhaps meaning her boquet. The following extracts from Lady Cowper's Diary will throw great light on these intrigues. As early as October, 1715, she says, 66 6 : They had done a world of things to force Lord Cowper to quit, who was their superior in every thing, because they were afraid of his honesty and plain dealing." My Lord was visited by the Duke of Somerset, who repeated all the conversation he had with Lord Townshend upon his dismission. Lord Townshend came to the Duke of Somerset, and, with a sorrowful air, told him he was sorry to tell him that the King had sent him to tell his Grace that he had no farther occasion for his services. The Duke of Somerset said, ' Pray, my Lord, what is the reason of it?' Lord Townshend answers, he did not know.' Then,' says the Duke of Somerset, by , my Lord, you lie: you know that the King puts me out for no other cause but for the lies which you, and such as you, have invented and told of me.' Lord Cowper had advised the Cabinet Council against this step, so they did not acquaint him with it when it was done.' "My Lord fell ill again the Saturday following, and continued so a great while, which occasioned a report that he was going out of his place. Some said he had not health to keep in; others, more truly, said the Lords of the Cabinet Council were jealous of his great reputation, and had a mind to have him out, so were resolved to weary him out of it; which last was very true, for they had resolved among themselves, without acquainting Baron Bernstorff with it, to put my Lord Chief Justice Parker into his place.' "I kept house all this time, and saw nobody, and had enough to do to keep my Lord Keeper from giving up, and I'm sure the disputes and arguments we had upon that subject were wholly the occasion of his staying in, and it was at least three weeks before I could prevail. The month ending with the solemnization of the Prince's birthday, which should have been solemnized the 30th, if it had not been Sunday, I went privately to wish them joy, my Lord being very ill; so I saw them alone in the bed-chamber. The Prince asked me what Lord Cowper said to the Duke of Somerset's being put out? I said, 'he knew nothing of it.' He said, No more did I, for I opposed it once when it was named, and so they kept it from me.' I said, that was my Lord Cowper's case.' The Prince said a thousand kind things of my Lord Cowper, and so did the Princess, and the Prince bid me tell him he wished he would not lay things so much to heart; that he looked upon him as an old courtier, or else he had imparted some of his experience to him, which was, when the King sided with what he thought not right to endeavour to prevent it, and when he could not, to go on cheerfully; and tell him when I come to the King, all things shall go to his mind, and in the mean time, whenever he has a mind to take t'other pull on the Cabinet Council, I'm ready to keep his back hand.' The Princess made as many expressions as the Prince had done; but by some words the Princess let drop, I perceived that she had been talked to by Baron Bernstorff for meddling with what had been doing.”—14th Feb. 1716. "The news was confirmed yesterday, the Pretender is gone. My Lord |